Caedmon
Cædmon is the first English poet of whom we have any knowledge.. An Anglo-Saxon herdsman attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy ((657–80) of St. Hilda of Whitby (614-680), he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century monk Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational religious poet. Cædmon is 1 of 12 Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval sources, and 1 of only 3 for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived.The 12 named Anglo-Saxon poets are Æduwen, Aldhelm, Alfred the Great, Anlaf, Baldulf, Bede, Cædmon, Cnut, Cynewulf, Dunstan, Hereward, and Wulfstan (or perhaps Wulfsige). Most of these are considered by modern scholars to be spurious—see O'Donnell 2005, Introduction 1.22. The 3 for whom biographical information and documented texts survive are Alfred, Bede, and Cædmon. Cædmon is the only Anglo-Saxon poet known primarily for his ability to compose vernacular verse, and no vernacular verse survives that is known to have been written by either Bede or Alfred. There are a number of verse texts known to have been composed by Cynewulf, but we know nothing of his biography. (No study appears to exist of the "named" Anglo-Saxon poets—the list here has been compiled from Frank 1993 (http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/mancass/thetollerlecture/: Roberta Frank), Opland 1980, Sisam 1953 and Robinson 1990). Cædmon's only known surviving work is Cædmon's Hymn, the 9-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. Life Overview Originally employed as cowherd at the Abbey of Whitby, he became a singer when somewhat advanced in life. The story of how the gift of song came to him is given by Bede, how having fallen asleep in the stable he dreamed that one came to him desiring a song, and on his asking "What shall I sing?" replied "Sing to me of the beginning of created things." Therefore he began to sing and, on awaking, remembered his song and added to it. Thereafter he told what had befallen him to the bailiff who was over him, who repeated the tale to the Abbess Hilda. She having called together certain learned and pious persons, Cædmon was brought before them, told his story, and recited his verses. A part of Scripture was read to him, which he was asked to turn into verse; and this being done he was received into the Abbey where, for the rest of his life, he lived as a monk, and continued to make his holy songs. Much that was formerly attributed to Cædmon is now held to be of later date. All that is known to be his is a Northumbrian version of Bede's Latin paraphrases of Cædmon's first song: although by some the authorship of "The Dream of the Holy Rood," and of a fragment on "The Temptation and Fall of Man" is claimed for him.John William Cousin, "Cædmon," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 68. Web, Dec. 22, 2017. Bede's account His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People") by Bede who wrote, "there was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven." The sole source of original information about Cædmon's life and work is Bede's Historia ecclesiastica.Book IV, Chapter 24. The most recent edition is Colgrave and Mynors 1969 According to Bede, Cædmon was a lay brother who worked as a herdsman at the monastery Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey). One evening, while the monks were feasting, singing, and playing a harp, Cædmon left early to sleep with the animals because he knew no songs. While asleep, he had a dream in which "someone" (quidem) approached him and asked him to sing principium creaturarum, "the beginning of created things." After first refusing to sing, Cædmon subsequently produced a short eulogistic poem praising God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Upon awakening the next morning, Cædmon remembered everything he had sung and added additional lines to his poem. He told his foreman about his dream and gift and was taken immediately to see the abbess. The abbess and her counsellors asked Cædmon about his vision and, satisfied that it was a gift from God, gave him a new commission, this time for a poem based on “a passage of sacred history or doctrine”, by way of a test. When Cædmon returned the next morning with the requested poem, he was ordered to take monastic vows. The abbess ordered her scholars to teach Cædmon sacred history and doctrine, which after a night of thought, Bede records, Cædmon would turn into the most beautiful verse. According to Bede, Cædmon was responsible for a large oeuvre of splendid vernacular poetic texts on a variety of Christian topics. After a long and zealously pious life, Cædmon died like a saint: receiving a premonition of death, he asked to be moved to the abbey’s hospice for the terminally ill where, having gathered his friends around him, he expired just before nocturns. Although he is often listed as a saint, this is not confirmed by Bede and it has recently been argued that such assertions are incorrect.Stanley 1998 The details of Bede's story, and in particular of the miraculous nature of Cædmon's poetic inspiration, are not generally accepted by scholars as being entirely accurate, but there seems no good reason to doubt the existence of a poet named Cædmon. Bede's narrative has to be read in the context of medieval belief in miracles, and it shows at the very least that Bede, an educated and intelligent man, believed Cædmon to be an important figure in the history of English intellectual and religious life.O'Donnell 2005 Dates Bede gives no specific dates in his story. Cædmon is said to have taken holy orders at an advanced age and it is implied that he lived at Streonæshalch at least in part during Hilda’s abbacy (657–680). Book IV Chapter 25 of the Historia ecclesiastica appears to suggest that Cædmon’s death occurred at about the same time as the fire at Coldingham Abbey, an event dated in the E text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to 679, but after 681 by Bede.See Ireland 1986, pp. 228; Dumville 1981, p. 148 The reference to his temporibus ‘at this time’ in the opening lines of Chapter 25 may refer more generally to Cædmon’s career as a poet. However, the next datable event in the Historia ecclesiastica is King Ecgfrith’s raid on Ireland in 684 (Book IV, Chapter 26). Taken together, this evidence suggests an active period beginning between 657 and 680 and ending between 679 and 684. Modern discoveries The only biographical or historical information that modern scholarship has been able to add to Bede’s account concerns the Brittonic origins of the poet’s name. Although Bede specifically notes that English was Cædmon’s "own" language, the poet’s name is of Celtic origin: from Proto-Welsh (from Brythonic *''Catumandos'').Jackson 1953, p. 554 Several scholars have suggested that Cædmon himself may have been bilingual on the basis of this etymology, though he may have just be of partly British descent, Hilda’s close contact with Celtic political and religious hierarchies, and some (not very close) analogues to the Hymn in Old Irish poetry.See in particular Ireland 1986, p. 238 and Schwab 1972, p. 48 Other medieval sources ) in North Yorkshire, England— founded in 657 by St. Hilda, the abbey fell to a viking attack in 867 and was abandoned. It was re-built in 1078 and flourished until 1540 when it was destroyed by Henry VIII.]] No other independent accounts of Cædmon’s life and work are known to exist. The only other reference to Cædmon in English sources before the 12th century is found in the 10th century Old English translation of Bede's Latin Historia. Otherwise, no mention of Cædmon is found in the corpus of surviving Old English. The Old English translation of the Historia ecclesiastica does contain several minor details not found in Bede’s Latin original account. Of these, the most significant is that Cædmon felt "shame" for his inability to sing vernacular songs before his vision, and the suggestion that Hilda’s scribes copied down his verse æt muðe "from his mouth".See Opland 1980, pp. 111–120 These differences are in keeping with the Old English translator’s practice in reworking Bede’s Latin original,See Whitelock 1963 for a general discussion. however, and need not, as Wrenn argues, suggest the existence of an independent English tradition of the Cædmon story.Wrenn 1946, p. 281. The Heliand A second, possibly pre-12th century allusion to the Cædmon story is found in two Latin texts associated with the Old Saxon Heliand poem. These texts, the Praefatio (Preface) and Versus de Poeta (Lines about the poet), explain the origins of an Old Saxon biblical translation (for which the Heliand is the only known candidate)Andersson 1974, p. 278. in language strongly reminiscent of, and indeed at times identical to, Bede’s account of Cædmon’s career.Convenient accounts of the relevant portions of the Praefatio and Versus can be found in Smith 1978, pp. 13–14, and Plummer 1896 II pp. 255–258. According to the prose Praefatio, the Old Saxon poem was composed by a renowned vernacular poet at the command of the emperor Louis the Pious; the text then adds that this poet had known nothing of vernacular composition until he was ordered to translate the precepts of sacred law into vernacular song in a dream. The Versus de Poeta contain an expanded account of the dream itself, adding that the poet had been a herdsman before his inspiration and that the inspiration itself had come through the medium of a heavenly voice when he fell asleep after pasturing his cattle. While our knowledge of these texts is based entirely on a 16th century edition by Flacius Illyricus,Catalogus testium ueritatis 1562. both are usually assumed on semantic and grammatical grounds to be of medieval composition.See Andersson 1974 for a review of the evidence for and against the authenticity of the prefaces. This apparent debt to the Cædmon story agrees with semantic evidence attested to by Green demonstrating the influence of Anglo Saxon biblical poetry and terminology on early continental Germanic literatures.See Green 1965, particularly pp. 286–294. Sources and analogues In contrast to his usual practice elsewhere in the Historia ecclesiastica, Bede provides no information about his sources for the Cædmon story. Since a similar paucity of sources is also characteristic of other stories from Whitby Abbey in his work, this may indicate that his knowledge of Cædmon's life was based on tradition current at his home monastery in (relatively) nearby Wearmouth-Jarrow. Perhaps as a result of this lack of documentation, scholars have devoted considerable attention since the 1830s to tracking down possible sources or analogues to Bede's account. These parallels have been drawn from all around the world, including biblical and classical literature, stories told by the aboriginal peoples of Australia, North America and the Fiji Islands, mission-age accounts of the conversion of the Xhosa in Southern Africa, the lives of English romantic poets, and various elements of Hindu and Muslim scripture and tradition.Good reviews of analogue research can be found in Pound 1929, Lester 1974, and O'Donnell 2005. Although the search was begun by scholars such as Sir Francis Palgrave, who hoped either to find Bede’s source for the Cædmon story or to demonstrate that its details were so commonplace as to hardly merit consideration as legitimate historiography,Palgrave 1832 subsequent research has instead ended up demonstrating the uniqueness of Bede’s version: as Lester shows, no “analogue” to the Cædmon story found before 1974 parallels Bede’s chapter in more than about half its key features;Lester 1974. the same observation can be extended to cover all analogues since identified.O'Donnell 2005. Composition General corpus Bede’s account indicates that Cædmon was responsible for the composition of a large oeuvre of vernacular religious poetry. In contrast to Saints Aldhelm and Dunstan,On whose careers as vernacular poets in comparison to that of Cædmon, see Opland 1980, pp. 120–127 and 178–180. Cædmon’s poetry is said to have been exclusively religious. Bede reports that Cædmon "could never compose any foolish or trivial poem, but only those which were concerned with devotion", and his list of Cædmon’s output includes work on religious subjects only: accounts of creation, translations from the Old and New Testaments, and songs about the "terrors of future judgment, horrors of hell, ... joys of the heavenly kingdom, ... and divine mercies and judgments." Of this corpus, only his first poem survives. While vernacular poems matching Bede’s description of several of Cædmon’s later works are found in London, British Library, Junius 11 (traditionally referred to as the "Junius" or "Cædmon" manuscript), the older traditional attribution of these texts to Cædmon or Cædmon’s influence cannot stand. The poems show significant stylistic differences both internally and with Cædmon’s original Hymn,See Wrenn 1946 and there is nothing about their order or content to suggest that they could not have been composed and anthologised without any influence from Bede’s discussion of Cædmon’s oeuvre: the first three Junius poems are in their biblical order and, while Christ and Satan could be understood as partially fitting Bede’s description of Cædmon’s work on future judgment, pains of hell and joys of the heavenly kingdom,Gollancz 1927, p. xlvi the match is not exact enough to preclude independent composition. As Fritz and Day have shown, indeed, Bede’s list itself may owe less to direct knowledge of Cædmon’s actual output than to traditional ideas about the subjects fit for Christian poetryFritz 1969, p. 336 or the order of the catechism.Day 1975, pp. 54–55 Similar influences may, of course, also have affected the makeup of the Junius volume.See Day 1975, p. 55, for a discussion of Christ and Satan. ''Cædmon's Hymn'' (Kk. 5. 16, often referred to as M'). The other candidate is St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18 (P)]] The only known survivor from Cædmon's oeuvre is his ''Hymn (audio version The Norton Online Archive of English Literature, Cædmon's Hymn recorded by Prof. Robert D. Fulk (Indiana University).Online, accessed 26 April 2006.). The poem is known from 21 manuscript copies,Arranged by city and library, these are (sigla symbols commonly found in modern discussions of the text follow each shelf-mark): Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 8245–57 (Br); Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 41 (B1); Cambridge, Trinity College, R. 5. 22 (Tr1); Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 3. 18 (Ca); Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 5. 16 ("The Moore Bede") (M); Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, 574 (Di); Hereford, Cathedral Library, P. 5. i (Hr); London, British Library, Additional 43703 (N also C); † Cotton Otho B. xi (London, British Library, Cotton Otho B. xi + London, British Library, Otho B. x, ff. 55, 58, 62 + London, British Library, Additional 34652, f. 2) (C also N); London, College of Arms, s.n. (CArms); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 163 (Bd); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 43 (H); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 243 (Ld); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner 10 (T1); Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 279, B (O); Oxford, Lincoln College, lat. 31 (Ln); Oxford, Magdalen College, lat. 105 (Mg); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 5237 (P1); St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18 ("The St. Petersburg Bede"; "The Leningrad Bede") (P); San Marino CA, Huntington Library, HM 35300 formerly Bury St. Edmunds, Cathedral Library, 1 (SanM); † Tournai, Bibliothèque de la Ville, 134 (To); Winchester, Cathedral I (W). making it the best-attested Old English poem after [[Bede|Bede's Death Song]] (with 35 witnesses) and the best attested in the poetic corpus in manuscripts copied or owned in the British Isles during the Anglo-Saxon period.See Dobbie 1937 and the additional manuscripts described in Humphreys and Ross 1975; the most recent account is in O'Donnell 2005 The Hymn also has by far the most complicated known textual history of any surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. It is found in two dialects and five distinct recensions (Northumbrian aelda, Northumbrian eordu, West-Saxon eorðan, West-Saxon ylda, and West-Saxon eorðe), all but one of which are known from three or more witnesses.Dobbie 1937 with important additions and revisions in Humphreys and Ross 1975; O’Donnell 1996; and Orton 1998. It is one of the earliest attested examples of written Old English and one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language.Stanley 1995, p. 139. Together with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, Cædmon's Hymn is one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry.Ó Carragáin 2005 There is continuing critical debate about the status of the poem as it is now available to us. While some scholars accept the texts of the Hymn as more or less accurate transmissions of Cædmon's original, others argue that they originated as a back-translation from Bede's Latin, and that there is no surviving witness to the original text.O'Donnell 2005 Manuscript evidence All copies of Hymn are found in manuscripts of the Historia ecclesiastica or its translation, where they serve as either a gloss to Bede's Latin translation of the Old English poem, or, in the case of the Old English version, a replacement for Bede's translation in the main text of the History. Despite this close connection with Bede's work, the Hymn does not appear to have been transmitted with the Historia ecclesiastica regularly until relatively late in its textual history. Scribes other than those responsible for the main text often copy the vernacular text of the Hymn in manuscripts of the Latin Historia. In three cases, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 243, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 43, and Winchester, Cathedral I, the poem is copied by scribes working a quarter-century or more after the main text was first set down.See Ker 1957, arts. 341, 326 and 396; also O’Keeffe 1990, p. 36. Even when the poem is in the same hand as the manuscript’s main text, there is little evidence to suggest that it was copied from the same exemplar as the Latin Historia: nearly identical versions of the Old English poem are found in manuscripts belonging to different recensions of the Latin text; closely related copies of the Latin Historia sometimes contain very different versions of the Old English poem. With the exception of the Old English translation, no single recension of the Historia ecclesiastica is characterised by the presence of a particular recension of the vernacular poem.Compare the recensional identifications for witnesses to the Old English Hymn in Dobbie 1937 with those for manuscripts of the Latin Historia in Colgrave and Mynors 1969, pp. xxxix–lxx. Earliest text The oldest known version of the poem is the Northumbrian aelda recension.As O'Donnell 2005 argues, however, this does not mean that this version must most closely resemble Cædmon's original text. The West-Saxon eorðan recension in particular shows several readings which, although attested later, are for a variety of reasons more likely to represent forms found in the original poem than those of the aelda text. The surviving witnesses to this text, Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 5. 16 (M) and St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18 (P), date to at least the mid-8th century. '''M in particular is traditionally ascribed to Bede's own monastery and lifetime, though there is little evidence to suggest it was copied much before the mid-8th century.See O'Donnell 2005. The following text has been transcribed from M''' (mid-8th century; Northumbria). The text has been normalised to show a line-break between each half-line and modern word-division. A transcription of the likely pronunciation of the text in the early 8th-century Northumbrian dialect in which the text is written is included, along with a modern English translation. Bede's Latin version is added for comparison: :nu scylun hergan :hefaenricaes uard :metudæs maecti :end his modgidanc :uerc uuldurfadur :swe he uundra gihwaes :eci dryctin :or astelidæ :he aerist scop :aelda barnu''m'' :heben til hrofe :haleg scepen. :tha middungeard :moncynnæs uard :eci dryctin :æfter tiadæ :firum fold''u'' :frea allmectigText from Richard Marsden, The Cambridge Old English Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 80, collated with manuscript facsimile. : Based on the information in A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959) :Now we must honour :the guardian of heaven, :the might of the architect, :and his purpose, :the work of the father of gloryThis is the traditional translation of these lines. An alternative translation of the eorðan and aelda texts, however, understands weorc as the subject: "Now the works of the father of glory must honour the guardian of heaven, the might of the architect, and his mind's purpose". See Mitchell 1985, Ball 1985, pp. 39–41, and Howlett 1974, p. 6. :— as he, the eternal lord, :established :the beginning of wonders. :He, the holy creator, :first created heaven as a roof :for the children of men.This is the reading of the West-Saxon ylda and Northumbrian aelda recensions. The West-Saxon eorðan, Northumbrian eordu, and with some corruption, the West-Saxon eorðe recensions would be translated "for the children of earth". :Then the guardian of mankind :the eternal lord, :the Lord almighty :afterwards appointed :the middle earth, :the lands, for men.The Northumbrian '''eordu and West-Saxon ylda and eorðe recensions would be translated "for men among the lands" at this point''. :Nunc laudare debemus :auctorem regni caelestis, :potentiam creatoris, :et consilium illius :facta Patris gloriae: :quomodo ille, :cum sit aeternus Deus, :omnium miraculorum auctor exstitit; :qui primo :filiis hominum :caelum pro culmine tecti :dehinc terram :custos humani generis :omnipotens :creavit. Recognition Caedmon is commemorated by a memorial stone, unveiled in 1966, in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.Caedmon, People, History, Westminster Abbey. Web, July 11, 2016. References *Andersson, Th. M. 1974. "The Cædmon fiction in the Heliand Preface" Publications of the Modern Language Association 89:278–84. *Ball, C. J. E. 1985. "Homonymy and polysemy in Old English: a problem for lexicographers." In: Problems of Old English Lexicography: studies in memory of Angus Cameron, ed. A. Bammesberger. (Eichstätter Beiträge, 15.) 39–46. Regensburg: Pustet. *Bessinger, J. B., Jr. 1974. "Homage to Cædmon and others: a Beowulfian praise song." In: Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope. Ed. Robert B. Burlin, Edward B. Irving, Jr. & Marie Borroff. 91–106. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. *Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B., eds. 1969. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Day, V. 1975. "The influence of the catechetical narratio on Old English and some other medieval literature" Anglo-Saxon England; 3: 51–61. *Dobbie, E. v. K. 1937. "The manuscripts of Cædmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song with a critical text of the Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae. (Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature; 128.) New York: Columbia University Press. *Dumville, D. 1981. "'Beowulf' and the Celtic world: the uses of evidence". Traditio; 37: 109–160. *Frank, Roberta. 1993. "The search for the Anglo-Saxon oral poet" Northcote Toller memorial lecture; 9 March 1992. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library; 75 (no. 1): 11–36. *Fritz, D. W. 1969. "Cædmon: a traditional Christian poet". Mediaevalia 31: 334–337. *Fry, D. K. 1975. "Cædmon as formulaic poet". Oral Literature: seven essays. Ed. J. J. Duggan. 41–61. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. *Fry, D. K. 1979. "Old English formulaic statistics". In Geardagum; 3: 1–6. *Gollancz, I., ed. 1927. The Cædmon manuscript of Anglo-Saxon biblical poetry: Junius XI in the Bodleian Library. London: Oxford U. P. for the British Academy. (Facsimile of the MS.) *Green, D. H. 1965. The Carolingian Lord: semantic studies on four Old High German words: ''Balder, Frô, Truhtin, Hêrro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Hieatt, C. B. 1985. "Cædmon in context: transforming the formula". Journal of English and Germanic Philology; 84: 485–497. *Howlett, D. R. 1974. "The theology of Cædmon's Hymn". Leeds Studies in English 7: 1–12. *Humphreys, K. W. & Ross, A. S. C. 1975. "Further manuscripts of Bede's 'Historia ecclesiastica', of the 'Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae', and further Anglo-Saxon texts of 'Cædmon's Hymn' and 'Bede's Death Song'". Notes and Queries; 220: 50–55. *Ireland, C. A. 1986. "The Celtic Background to the Story of Cædmon and his Hymn". Unpublished Ph.D. diss. University of California at Los Angeles. *Jackson, K. 1953. Language and History in Early Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. *Klaeber, F. 1912. "Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf". Anglia; 35: 111–136. *Lester, G. A. 1974. "The Cædmon story and its analogues". Neophilologus; 58: 225–237. *Miletich, J. S. 1983. "Old English 'formulaic' studies and Cædmon's Hymn in a comparative context". Festschrift für Nikola R. Pribić. Ed. Josip Matešić and Erwin Wedel. (Selecta Slavica; 9.) 183–194. Neuried: Hieronymus. ISBN 3-88893-021-9 *Mitchell, B. 1985. "Cædmon's Hymn line 1: What is the subject of scylun or its variants?" Leeds Studies in English; 16: 190–197. *Morland, L. 1992. "Cædmon and the Germanic tradition". De Gustibus: essays for Alain Renoir. Ed. John Miles Foley, J. Chris Womack, & Whitney A. Womack. (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities; 1482.) 324–358. New York: Garland. *O'Donnell, D. P. 1996. "A Northumbrian version of 'Cædmon's Hymn' (Northumbrian eordu recension) in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 8245–57, ff. 62r2-v1: identification, edition, and filiation." In: Beda Venerabilis: Historian, monk, and Northumbrian. Ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald. (Mediaevalia Groningana; 19.) 139–165. Groningen: Forsten. *O'Donnell, D. P. 2005. Cædmon’s Hymn, a multimedia study, edition, and witness archive. (SEENET A; 7.) Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. *O'Hare, C. 1992. "The story of Cædmon: Bede's account of the first English poet". American Benedictine Review; 43: 345–57. *O'Keeffe, K. O’B. 1990. Visible song: transitional literacy in Old English verse. (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England; 4.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. *Opland, J. 1980. Anglo-Saxon oral poetry: a study of the traditions. New Haven: Yale University Press. *Orton, P. 1998. "The transmission of the West-Saxon versions of Cædmon's Hymn: a reappraisal". Studia Neophilologica; 70: 153–164. *Palgrave, F. 1832. "Observations on the history of Cædmon". Archaeologia; 24: 341–342. *Plummer, C., ed. 1896. Venerabilis Baedae Historiam ecclesiasticam gentis anglorum, historiam abbatum, epistolam ad Ecgberctum una cum historia abbatum commentario tam critico quam historico instruxit Carolus Plummer ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum denuo recognovit. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Pound, L. 1929. "Cædmon's dream song". Studies in English Philology: A miscellany in honor of Frederick Klaeber. Ed. Kemp Malone and Martin B. Ruud. 232–239. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. *Robinson, F. C. 1990. "Old English poetry: the question of authorship". ANQ; n.s. 3: 59–64. *Schwab, U. 1972. Cædmon. (Testi e Studi: Pubblicazioni dell'Istituto di Lingue e Letterature Germaniche, Università di Messina.) Messina: Peloritana Editrice. *Sisam, K. 1953. Studies in the History of Old English literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Smith, A. H., ed. 1978. Three Northumbrian Poems: Cædmon's Hymn, Bede's Death Song and the Leiden Riddle. With a bibliography compiled by M. J. Swanton. Revised edition. (Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies.) Exeter: University of Exeter Press. *Stanley, E. 1998. "St. Cædmon". Notes and Queries; 143: 4–5. *Whitelock, D. 1963. "The Old English Bede". (Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, 1962.) Proceedings of the British Academy; 48: 57–93. *Wrenn, C. L. "The poetry of Cædmon". (Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, 1945.) Proceedings of the British Academy; 32: 277–295. Notes External links ;Poems * Selected Poetry of Cædmon (fl. 658-680) at Representative Poetry Online. *Modern English verse-translation of Cædmon's Hymn ;About *Caedmon in the Encyclopædia Britannica *Caedmon of Whitby at the Anglo-Cathlic *Bede's Story of Cædmon *[http://www.whitby-uk.com/cgi-bin/site.nav/whitby.pl?page=caedmon Cædmon at Whitby Attractions] *St. Hilda and Cædmon Page at St. Wilfrid's *"Caedmon and Cynewulf: A tale of two poets" ;Etc. *Bede's World Category:7th-century Christian saints Category:7th-century deaths Category:Anglo-Saxon poets Category:English poets Category:History of North Yorkshire Category:Northumbrian saints Category:People from Whitby Category:Yorkshire saints Category:Year of birth unknown Category:English male writers Category:7th-century poets Category:Poets